A
bill currently in the California Senate would strictly limit the
freedom of religious schools to admit and teach students, hire
professors, and engage in religious practices in line with their
beliefs.
Senate Bill 1146
was sponsored by Sen. Ricardo Lara, who represents the
33rd district of
California. His purpose in drafting the legislation was to prevent
religiously affiliated schools from obtaining exemptions from Title IX, a
federal law that was originally intended to prevent discrimination
against women in educational programs that receive federal funding. The
U.S. Department of Education has recently attempted to extend the
protections to transgender students.
Schools can currently get exemptions from certain requirements that,
if followed, would undermine their religious beliefs. The bill would
force schools that have obtained exemptions to inform the California
Student Aid Commission, as well as students and staff.
Under current law, schools do not have to disclose this information.
The bill would also allow students who claim to have been discriminated
against under the exemption to file a lawsuit.
“All students deserve to feel safe in institutions of higher
education, regardless of whether they are public or private,” Lara said
in a statement.
“California has established strong protections for the LGBTQ community
and private universities should not be able to use faith as an excuse to
discriminate and avoid complying with state laws. No university should
have a license to discriminate.”
Organizations supporting the bill include the Los Angeles LGBT Center, Equality California and the Transgender Law Center.
“Students and staff have a right to know when their school requests a
license to discriminate against the LGBT community,” said Dave Garcia,
director of policy and community building for the Los Angeles LGBT
Center. “This bill will protect LGBT people who work and study at
private universities and will allow all Californians to be more
informed.”
Equality California also supports the measure. “Prospective students
have a right to know if a university they are considering attending
discriminates against LGBT people,” said Rick Zbur, the organization’s
executive director. “This bill would let any school seeking to skirt
federal anti-discrimination protections know that its policies would be
public.”
Not every state senator is in agreement. Sen. John Moorlach of the 37th district wrote in a
letter
to constituents, “Senate Bill 1146 goes far beyond the appropriate role
of government designed to provide protections against discrimination.
In fact, Senate Bill 1146 discriminates against private and independent
universities that hold themselves and their student body to a certain
moral code that is thousands of years old. Punishing private
institutions for adhering to long-held codes of conduct consistent with
their beliefs is inappropriate and destructive to our education system.
This legislation unfairly targets the beliefs of the schools, their
students and community.”
Moorlach based his stance on constitutional rights, such as the
freedom of religion. “Senate Bill 1146 does not safeguard against
discrimination, but rather is a form of discrimination against religious
liberty itself,” he wrote. “Restricting private institutions from
adhering to its religious beliefs is a violation of their First
Amendment rights and an act itself of intolerance.”
It should be noted that the
California Constitution expressly protects both freedom of religion and freedom of speech, as well as guaranteeing the right to “assemble freely.”
The consensus among religious schools that would be affected by the
bill is that it would severely limit their religious freedom and
educational mission.
Jon R. Wallace, president of Azusa Pacific University, said he
listened to the testimony on the bill and believes those involved all
want the same things for students — “care, love, safety, and security.”
“The California higher education system has always been robust,”
Wallace said. “I really think this is a solution looking for a problem.”
Wallace discussed the diversity of the Los Angeles area, which has
dozens of cultures and languages, as well as many religious
institutions. He described religious schools as filling a need in the
area. “The church wants a place to send students,” he said. “The danger
[with the bill] is that the important voice of religious schools could
be silenced. This bill guts student choice. [These schools] are safe
places for students [to explore their beliefs] in Christian
environments.”
Concordia University Irvine concurs. “As written, the bill would
severely limit our schools’ ability to faithfully live out our religious
mission,” Kurt J. Krueger, president of Concordia, said in a
letter
written to the Assembly’s judiciary committee chairman. “The ability of
a Lutheran Christian university like ours to act in a manner consistent
with our religious tenets and mission is not a problem to be solved,
but a freedom that is constitutionally protected.”
Richard Kriegbaum, president of Fresno Pacific University, pointed
out that the issue the bill purports to address seems to not be an issue
on religious campuses.
“The bill would be bad public policy in part because the bill seeks
to force schools to address an issue that does not exist on our campus
or at other similar schools,” he stated in an email. “No data-based or
even anecdotal evidence supports the existence of mistreatment or lack
of educational success among the LGBT students who choose our
school(s).”
Holly Scheer,
writing in The Federalist,
makes the point that no one is forcing students to attend universities
whose beliefs and teachings they disagree with. “It seems sensible that
if you don’t want an education imbued with the values of a religion—any
religion—attending classes at a religious school would be a poor choice
for you,” Scheer writes. “This is not a day or age of limited academic
choices.”
The bill will go before the state Assembly Judiciary committee on Tuesday.
Western Journalism
